With Eye on Mobile, Yahoo Revises Its Search Partnership With Microsoft

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Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo chief executive. The new partnership will allow Yahoo to deliver its own search results and ads for up to half the searches done by visitors to Yahoo sites and apps.CreditMax Whittaker for The New York Times

Under the original agreement, struck five years ago, Yahoo was required to use Microsoft’s Bing search results and ads for all desktop searches, although it was free to use alternatives on mobile devices.

Yahoo’s one billion users will not see a new search experience immediately, and any changes will probably be gradual. The venerable Internet company, which dominated web search before the rise of Google, sold its search technology to Microsoft under the original agreement and has only a small team devoted to search now.

But Ms. Mayer, who oversaw the interface and other major elements of the search experience at Google, has made it clear that she wants Yahoo to innovate on search, and the company has been experimenting with new approaches on mobile devices, particularly in personalizing results and presenting ads.

Search is vital to Yahoo’s business, accounting for 35 percent of the company’s revenue last year, or $1.8 billion. Under the original agreement, Microsoft gives Yahoo about 90 percent of the revenue from ads it shows on Yahoo. The companies said that under the revised deal, “this existing underlying economic structure remains unchanged.”

Desktop users in the United States conducted 12.7 percent of their searches on Yahoo and 20.1 percent on Bing in March, according to comScore, a research firm. Google dominated the market with 64.4 percent of searches.

Ms. Mayer and Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, were both personally involved in the negotiations. Microsoft has poured billions of dollars into search, and Mr. Nadella is committed to remaining in the business. Microsoft was a primary agitator behind the European Commission’s decision on Wednesday to bring antitrust charges against Google, accusing the company of abusing its dominance in search to hurt consumers and competitors.

Yahoo will now be able to sell desktop search ads to advertisers through its Gemini platform, which the company is building into a one-stop shop for buying ads across all Yahoo properties as well as other apps and sites in its network.

Microsoft will gradually take over sales of all ads for Bing search, allowing it to integrate the team more closely with the people developing search technology. Previously, the premium ads were sold by Yahoo sales representatives.

Both companies declined to elaborate on details of the agreement, citing the quiet period ahead of the release of their quarterly financial results next week.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: With Eye on Mobile, Yahoo Revises Search Deal With Microsoft. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe